Lanyards are safety straps or the like which are connected between a fixed safety platform and a body harness which is attached to the operator to be protected from a fall. However, in some circumstances the lanyard and body harness may be integrated into a single unit, which for the purposes of this discussion will also be termed a lanyard. Additionally, the body harness may take a variety of forms, ranging from a simple safety waist-style belt to a full body harness.
While there are a variety of lanyard styles, the most common variety consists of a flexible nylon strap which has two locking snap hooks, one attached at each end of the lanyard, although other configurations are possible.
One significant safety issue presented when lanyards are used in conjunction with elevating construction machinery such as aerialift booms and the like is the issue of operator compliance. In most circumstances where a construction worker is positioned on a roof or other high structure, it is relatively easy for the worker to realize the immediate need to secure himself to the structure via the use of a lanyard or similar restraining device. The exposed nature of the work environment and the inherent height of the work environment tend to provide a positive reinforcement of the need to take this safety step.
However, this type of positive reinforcement is absent in many circumstances where the worker is the operator of an aerialift boom or the like, in which a piece of construction equipment actually transports the worker to an elevated height. In this situation, the aerialift boom operator may be in an aerialift boom basket or the like, and be unaware of the potential for a serious injury from a fall while the aerialift boom is rising or positioned at an elevated height. Furthermore, many aerialift boom baskets are equipped with latching doors which provide ingress and egress from the boom basket. In these situations the operator may be unaware that should the boom door latch fail, a potential for serious injury may exist should a fall occur. In these situations, it is quite common for an aerialift boom operator to forget to secure himself/herself to the aerialift boom/basket via the use of a lanyard and body harness.
This situation is exacerbated by the fact that many operators of aerialift booms and the like make many trips up and down in the aerialift boom basket while servicing telephone poles, cable TV hardware, and the like. These scenarios are fraught with situations in which the operator may leave the aerialift boom basket, retrieve tools or the like, return to the aerialift basket, and forget to attach the safety lanyard to his/her body harness before activating the aerialift boom movement controls. It is unfortunate and very sad that there have been many situations in which this scenario has occurred, with the operator subsequently falling from the aerialift boom basket. These accidental falls tend to be quite severe, resulting in broken bones, head and back injuries, as well as documented cases of permanent paralysis.
As a result, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has promulgated rules mandating fall protection standards in the workplace. These standards generally mandate that no worker be allowed to fall more than six feet and that no worker be allowed to free fall unrestrained more than two feet in a safety belt and four feet in a full body harness. While these standards generally require the use of fall protection systems and methods in conjunction with the use and operation of aerialift booms and the like, they do not dictate any positive system of enforcement regarding the use of these fall protection systems.
The alternative to the use of positive enforcement has been the use of human safety monitoring personnel (safety monitors) whose job it is to inspect the workplace and inform workers of potential fall hazards. This approach is obviously only effective in situations where the worker is operating in a group context and would be ineffective for a lone cable TV repairman, for example. The use of written fall protection plans and fall protection training are similarly ineffective in this context. Within the context of aerialift boom/baskets and the like (where the potential for serious injury resulting from an accidental fall is the greatest), the policies and procedures of OSHA seem to have the least potential for affecting an acceptable solution to this serious safety problem.
Thus, the existing methodologies do not address the human factor involved in the operation of elevating machinery which can pose potentially deadly fall hazards to their operators. In fact, government regulations and safety training are insufficient to ensure that safety devices are properly used or in fact used at all. Unfortunately, with the rapid expansion of the construction, telecommunications, and cable TV industries, the use of aerialift boom/basket devices has skyrocketed, resulting in a marked increase in accidental falls and subsequent severe injuries to workers in these fields. It is obvious from the record that fall protection training as well as policies and procedures for fall protection are inadequate to solve this problem alone.
While the use of lanyards and other fall prevention devices is widespread within the construction industry, there appears to be no art relevant to systems and methods that permit the use of these devices to be mandated or monitored to ensure their proper use. As a result, accidental falls continue to injure and disable thousands of workers per year.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method of preventing the use of aerialift boom/basket devices and the like unless the operator of such a device is properly secured to the aerialift boom/basket with a body harness and attached lanyard. Such a system should also minimize the operational impact on the use of existing lanyard devices by not requiring the operator/worker to perform extra safety related functions to affect mandatory use of the lanyard.